I always find the business side of TTRPGs to be very interesting. Recently I found this https://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-group-industry-report-q4-2020-8-million-users-edition/ (https://blog.roll20.net/posts/the-orr-group-industry-report-q4-2020-8-million-users-edition/) by Roll20 on games on their site.
It's crazy when you consider just how many games are getting created that about 6 companies have 80% of the games being played, with about 53% of that being D&D 5th edition.
D&D 5E is not a game I play or even own any of the books for but you have to respect the ability to grab that much market share.
They really need to define Uncatagorized since it is the second largest category...
Quote from: Palleon on June 07, 2021, 09:27:50 PM
They really need to define Uncatagorized since it is the second largest category...
When you create a game in roll20 you can select a character sheet from a whole bunch of systems but one of the options is "None" where you need to manually add attributes and abilities. My guess would be that is the Uncategorized.
I was surprised at the German RPG, The Dark Eye, making a 34% increase in campaign growth. I didn't realise it had become so popular. I guess Germans like Roll20.
Nice to see Delta Green having a small, but decent showing, AD&D 1e & 2e are still somewhat popular (more GURPS players than the TSR stuff? I'm a bit shocked by that).
Even 4e is way ahead on a lot of titles that seem to have been hyped more than actually played, which amuses me as most parrot how terrible it is to the point of being a meme.
Interesting reading.
Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies on June 08, 2021, 12:34:20 AMEven 4e is way ahead on a lot of titles that seem to have been hyped more than actually played, which amuses me as most parrot how terrible it is to the point of being a meme.
I've seen several commenters on Youtube that claim to like and still play 4e so this isn't that much of a shock. Plus the fact is that 4e is exactly the kind of map-focused, tactical RPG that does well on Roll20. When I used Roll20 (and I haven't in years), I only used their die rolling function. So my game would be in that huge "Uncategorized" category.
While it's great to have some actual play data. The fact is that the main features of Roll20 are only useful for a particular set of RPGs and many that I play (OD&D in particular) work just as well in Zoom or Skype. So the data is sort of self selected.
Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies on June 08, 2021, 12:34:20 AM
Even 4e is way ahead on a lot of titles that seem to have been hyped more than actually played, which amuses me as most parrot how terrible it is to the point of being a meme.
4e D&D is still D&D. There are a lot of people who play D&D editions who are not in the know on any of the indie scene.
Actually - it surprises me how low it is. There are still people who claim it was the best D&D edition - it was just misunderstood. (Though even most of them seem to agree that early-on it had issues that were fixed late in the cycle - such as HP bloat.)
Where does the PBTA army play if not on Roll20? I assume they take a break from bad/wrong/funning everyone on reddit and message boards to eventually play some games, but it looks like them plus FATE almost gets you three quarters of a point in market share.
Quote from: FingerRod on June 08, 2021, 09:25:16 AM
Where does the PBTA army play if not on Roll20? I assume they take a break from bad/wrong/funning everyone on reddit and message boards to eventually play some games, but it looks like them plus FATE almost gets you three quarters of a point in market share.
Roll20 is tied to a virtual table top. I know for a fact a lot of the FATE games are theater of the mind so they just play on discord and use a shared google doc.
This data in general, is interesting but not fully complete since it is only roll20 data.
Quote from: FingerRod on June 08, 2021, 09:25:16 AM
Where does the PBTA army play if not on Roll20? I assume they take a break from bad/wrong/funning everyone on reddit and message boards to eventually play some games, but it looks like them plus FATE almost gets you three quarters of a point in market share.
We looked at Table Top Simulator when we first started online. That's what I'd use for PBTA and FATE. roll20 seems like it'd be a nightmare for those. $20 gets you a lot with TTS.
Quote from: Primarch_XI on June 08, 2021, 09:59:05 AM
Quote from: FingerRod on June 08, 2021, 09:25:16 AM
Where does the PBTA army play if not on Roll20? I assume they take a break from bad/wrong/funning everyone on reddit and message boards to eventually play some games, but it looks like them plus FATE almost gets you three quarters of a point in market share.
Roll20 is tied to a virtual table top. I know for a fact a lot of the FATE games are theater of the mind so they just play on discord and use a shared google doc.
This data in general, is interesting but not fully complete since it is only roll20 data.
We are back in person for the games I referee, but I leveraged your same setup for our games (OD&D and LotFP) with Discord and a shared file folder. It worked great across tablets, phones, whatever.
If you want to hear something barbaric, I still
play in a 5e game that uses Roll20 BUT is also 99% theater of the mind. We don't even use the dice roller. ???
Quote from: rocksfalleverybodydies on June 08, 2021, 12:34:20 AM(more GURPS players than the TSR stuff? I'm a bit shocked by that).
There are dozens of us. Dozens!
Is World of Darkness really still relevant? I was under the impression that their sales collapsed in the late 90s and they never recovered (last I heard they sold a total of 6-7 million books lifetime). White Wolf doesn't even exist as a company anymore since it was bought, dissolved, and sold by video game companies. Their recent werewolf video game was a disaster, their big vampire game is in development hell after an extremely tumultuous development cycle that scrapped most of their work, and their remaining titles on Steam are low budget text adventure shovelware that are eclipsed in quality by indie mockbuster titles like Red Embrace: Hollywood.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 08, 2021, 10:06:02 PM
Is World of Darkness really still relevant? I was under the impression that their sales collapsed in the late 90s and they never recovered (last I heard they sold a total of 6-7 million books lifetime). White Wolf doesn't even exist as a company anymore since it was bought, dissolved, and sold by video game companies. Their recent werewolf video game was a disaster, their big vampire game is in development hell after an extremely tumultuous development cycle that scrapped most of their work, and their remaining titles on Steam are low budget text adventure shovelware that are eclipsed in quality by indie mockbuster titles like Red Embrace: Hollywood.
Depends. I'm currently playing Werewolf the Apocalypse 20th on Telegram with several others and all we ever use is the dice rolling bot I added to the group; we don't follow any canon details White Wolf set up for the world as a whole, so the Wyrm has been severely weakened and there's a possibility we may find one of the White Howlers or the Apis. As for who plays this IP besides us, if the most recent books are any hint, and I
mostly use 1D4chan for info on those releases, only the most slavering SJW tards play beyond the 20th Anniversary (4th Edition) versions, or maybe Revised AKA their 3rd Edition if they have those books. (I still find it hilarious how White Wolf thought framing the president of Chechnya as a literal monster and encouraging violence against him would go over well. Idiots.)
Otherwise, yeah. Earthblood was a letdown. I was expecting at least an action-RPG like Bound by Flame or Technomancer, but no, it's just an action brawler game with a stealth system that is weaker than the Styx games, which were developed by the same company no less. How does that work? Heart of the Forest is typical text adventure dross, just with the Werewolf lore and some WOD systems in place. Hell, the devs even praised it as helping feminist causes after it came out. Ugh, gag me.
Vampire the Masquerade 2 probably won't ever come out without severe compromises or buggy code. The game has been moved to another developer, and as I hear, the script might be getting a rewrite, even though it was already done, so make of that what you will.
The guys who made the original back in 2004 were at least held in place by the understanding that unless they made the best game they possibly could, Troika would go out of business. The devs now are being held up by Paradox, the company that bought them, so they could produce something like Cyberpunk 2077, something worthy of an hour long AVGN episode, and barely lose any people.
Quote from: Renegade_Productions on June 09, 2021, 01:16:36 PM
The guys who made the original back in 2004 were at least held in place by the understanding that unless they made the best game they possibly could, Troika would go out of business. The devs now are being held up by Paradox, the company that bought them, so they could produce something like Cyberpunk 2077, something worthy of an hour long AVGN episode, and barely lose any people.
What is strange is that they produced a very interesting "actual gameplay" video (like CP 2077 did) only to suddenly fire, IIRC, the lead creative guy and either the producer or one of the developing houses (I could check but I'm lazy). The crowds became restless but I fear that they looked at the real product, then at CP 2077, and realised that for no reason in the world they wanted
that. Someone messed up. I hope that the Publisher's intervention will be out of good sense.
Quote from: Renegade_Productions on June 09, 2021, 01:16:36 PM
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 08, 2021, 10:06:02 PM
Is World of Darkness really still relevant? I was under the impression that their sales collapsed in the late 90s and they never recovered (last I heard they sold a total of 6-7 million books lifetime). White Wolf doesn't even exist as a company anymore since it was bought, dissolved, and sold by video game companies. Their recent werewolf video game was a disaster, their big vampire game is in development hell after an extremely tumultuous development cycle that scrapped most of their work, and their remaining titles on Steam are low budget text adventure shovelware that are eclipsed in quality by indie mockbuster titles like Red Embrace: Hollywood.
Depends. I'm currently playing Werewolf the Apocalypse 20th on Telegram with several others and all we ever use is the dice rolling bot I added to the group; we don't follow any canon details White Wolf set up for the world as a whole, so the Wyrm has been severely weakened and there's a possibility we may find one of the White Howlers or the Apis. As for who plays this IP besides us, if the most recent books are any hint, and I mostly use 1D4chan for info on those releases, only the most slavering SJW tards play beyond the 20th Anniversary (4th Edition) versions, or maybe Revised AKA their 3rd Edition if they have those books. (I still find it hilarious how White Wolf thought framing the president of Chechnya as a literal monster and encouraging violence against him would go over well. Idiots.)
Otherwise, yeah. Earthblood was a letdown. I was expecting at least an action-RPG like Bound by Flame or Technomancer, but no, it's just an action brawler game with a stealth system that is weaker than the Styx games, which were developed by the same company no less. How does that work? Heart of the Forest is typical text adventure dross, just with the Werewolf lore and some WOD systems in place. Hell, the devs even praised it as helping feminist causes after it came out. Ugh, gag me.
Vampire the Masquerade 2 probably won't ever come out without severe compromises or buggy code. The game has been moved to another developer, and as I hear, the script might be getting a rewrite, even though it was already done, so make of that what you will.
The guys who made the original back in 2004 were at least held in place by the understanding that unless they made the best game they possibly could, Troika would go out of business. The devs now are being held up by Paradox, the company that bought them, so they could produce something like Cyberpunk 2077, something worthy of an hour long AVGN episode, and barely lose any people.
I'm just not interested in the lore and activism baked into the games, so they're basically useless to me. I don't like being constantly pipelined toward them either, since there's basically no notable urban fantasy tabletop community outside that (aside from
Shadowrun and maybe
Dresden Files).
With something like D&D you have plenty of freedom to create your own worlds and are encouraged to do so. The classes, monsters, etc are very modular in that respect. Even in the canonical settings, the same monster or class might be completely different between worlds.
You don't have that with urban fantasy. There are a bunch of dead 90s games and a handful of indie games being sold on digital. No single game that provides the kind of freedom comparable to D&D. Even when WotC tried to do
Urban Arcana, it still failed. The majority of interest seems to be in high fantasy, with every other genre being drops in the bucket.
Quote from: Reckall on June 09, 2021, 03:10:48 PM
Quote from: Renegade_Productions on June 09, 2021, 01:16:36 PM
The guys who made the original back in 2004 were at least held in place by the understanding that unless they made the best game they possibly could, Troika would go out of business. The devs now are being held up by Paradox, the company that bought them, so they could produce something like Cyberpunk 2077, something worthy of an hour long AVGN episode, and barely lose any people.
What is strange is that they produced a very interesting "actual gameplay" video (like CP 2077 did) only to suddenly fire, IIRC, the lead creative guy and either the producer or one of the developing houses (I could check but I'm lazy). The crowds became restless but I fear that they looked at the real product, then at CP 2077, and realised that for no reason in the world they wanted that. Someone messed up. I hope that the Publisher's intervention will be out of good sense.
I would actually be quite relieved if they fail. If the WoD games go under and become permanently unsupported because the IP owner doesn't care, then it might allow somebody else to move in on the market. I know RPG fans have this extreme brand loyalty compared to other markets, but I've never heard of a years OOP game maintaining a huge community to the present without the aid of retrocloning. If WotC hadn't stepped in, how likely do you think that D&D would've survived to the present? There's pretty much no reason to buy the WoD IP compared to writing your own, either. All of the worthwhile material was either pulled from public domain sources or rip-offed from other authors like Anne Rice and Brian Lumley.
Quote from: Reckall on June 09, 2021, 03:10:48 PM
What is strange is that they produced a very interesting "actual gameplay" video (like CP 2077 did) only to suddenly fire, IIRC, the lead creative guy and either the producer or one of the developing houses (I could check but I'm lazy). The crowds became restless but I fear that they looked at the real product, then at CP 2077, and realised that for no reason in the world they wanted that. Someone messed up. I hope that the Publisher's intervention will be out of good sense.
I remember that showcase. Seemed they had the right idea for the most part, but then all of that happened. No tears from me, though. Troika's original is always going to be around, and get modding updates, so the sequel is already a waste.
Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on June 09, 2021, 03:25:06 PM
I'm just not interested in the lore and activism baked into the games, so they're basically useless to me. I don't like being constantly pipelined toward them either, since there's basically no notable urban fantasy tabletop community outside that (aside from Shadowrun and maybe Dresden Files).
With something like D&D you have plenty of freedom to create your own worlds and are encouraged to do so. The classes, monsters, etc are very modular in that respect. Even in the canonical settings, the same monster or class might be completely different between worlds.
You don't have that with urban fantasy. There are a bunch of dead 90s games and a handful of indie games being sold on digital. No single game that provides the kind of freedom comparable to D&D. Even when WotC tried to do Urban Arcana, it still failed. The majority of interest seems to be in high fantasy, with every other genre being drops in the bucket.
Fair enough, though keep in mind, Urban Arcana was part of the D20 push back in the '00s. When you see that system everywhere for years, even on a Trigun RPG, it becomes worn out fast. Bad choice of system was its biggest issue.
Quote from: Reckall on June 09, 2021, 03:10:48 PMI would actually be quite relieved if they fail. If the WoD games go under and become permanently unsupported because the IP owner doesn't care, then it might allow somebody else to move in on the market. I know RPG fans have this extreme brand loyalty compared to other markets, but I've never heard of a years OOP game maintaining a huge community to the present without the aid of retrocloning. If WotC hadn't stepped in, how likely do you think that D&D would've survived to the present? There's pretty much no reason to buy the WoD IP compared to writing your own, either. All of the worthwhile material was either pulled from public domain sources or rip-offed from other authors like Anne Rice and Brian Lumley.
Glad I made that decision, then. I don't think Onyx Path will die off anytime soon, but being dicks to their potential customers and deep diving into the wokeness cesspit isn't doing them any favors.
As for D&D, TSR was bound to die because of many bad decisions, but Gygax and crew could've taken the games off the market for a while and built a new company out of which to sell them. WOTC having their hands on it now is no better than feeding it slow-acting poison.
How representative is their sample of the market as a whole? I'm curious and have no insight on the issue because I'm entirely unfamiliar with Roll20.
Quote from: Mishihari on June 10, 2021, 04:11:55 AM
How representative is their sample of the market as a whole? I'm curious and have no insight on the issue because I'm entirely unfamiliar with Roll20.
The VTT market or the entire TTRPG market?
Quote from: horsesoldier on June 10, 2021, 10:21:12 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on June 10, 2021, 04:11:55 AM
How representative is their sample of the market as a whole? I'm curious and have no insight on the issue because I'm entirely unfamiliar with Roll20.
The VTT market or the entire TTRPG market?
I meant the TTRPG market.
I don't think anyone has good numbers on that. That being said, these VTT's in my experience will funnel most towards the most complete system. These are amateur projects, developed for free in most cases and rewarded with passion. So if I don't want to F around with something under development, I'm going to select the most complete system.
Quote from: Mishihari on June 11, 2021, 03:55:59 AM
Quote from: horsesoldier on June 10, 2021, 10:21:12 AM
Quote from: Mishihari on June 10, 2021, 04:11:55 AM
How representative is their sample of the market as a whole? I'm curious and have no insight on the issue because I'm entirely unfamiliar with Roll20.
The VTT market or the entire TTRPG market?
I meant the TTRPG market.
I would say nobody has that complete number. I tried to look into Market share globally for example and I can find some stuff about Call of Cthulhu being number 1 in Japan but it's hard to get numbers.
The one advantage I think these numbers have is:
- Roll20 seems to be one of the biggest VTT
- The numbers are from 2020, when many players were forced online
Also these are numbers based on games being played, not books being sold. I've seen many posts for example of people who bought all the D&D5e books that also say "Now if only I could find someone to play with" and I myself bought an RPG book years before I really got a group going and never played it. So this is not a direct translation to $$$
Quote from: Primarch_XI on June 11, 2021, 10:08:21 AM
Also these are numbers based on games being played, not books being sold. I've seen many posts for example of people who bought all the D&D5e books that also say "Now if only I could find someone to play with" and I myself bought an RPG book years before I really got a group going and never played it. So this is not a direct translation to $$$
Yeah - I'd guess that would actually make indie TTRPGs a larger % of the market (as a whole) than shown on Roll20. It seems like a lot of people enjoy buying/reading indie RPGs - but they have trouble getting anyone to actually play them - and just go back to D&D or another more mainstream game so they can get a table. (Though of course - that's pure speculation on my part.)
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on June 11, 2021, 01:46:14 PM
Quote from: Primarch_XI on June 11, 2021, 10:08:21 AM
Also these are numbers based on games being played, not books being sold. I've seen many posts for example of people who bought all the D&D5e books that also say "Now if only I could find someone to play with" and I myself bought an RPG book years before I really got a group going and never played it. So this is not a direct translation to $$$
Yeah - I'd guess that would actually make indie TTRPGs a larger % of the market (as a whole) than shown on Roll20. It seems like a lot of people enjoy buying/reading indie RPGs - but they have trouble getting anyone to actually play them - and just go back to D&D or another more mainstream game so they can get a table. (Though of course - that's pure speculation on my part.)
The Networking Effect is a big deal in social games like D&D. I have no appetite for 6e but if my whole group moves to it I have no choice but to follow.
EDIT: Or stop playing with my friends which is no bueno.
Quote from: KingCheops on June 11, 2021, 03:30:15 PM
Quote from: Charon's Little Helper on June 11, 2021, 01:46:14 PM
Quote from: Primarch_XI on June 11, 2021, 10:08:21 AM
Also these are numbers based on games being played, not books being sold. I've seen many posts for example of people who bought all the D&D5e books that also say "Now if only I could find someone to play with" and I myself bought an RPG book years before I really got a group going and never played it. So this is not a direct translation to $$$
Yeah - I'd guess that would actually make indie TTRPGs a larger % of the market (as a whole) than shown on Roll20. It seems like a lot of people enjoy buying/reading indie RPGs - but they have trouble getting anyone to actually play them - and just go back to D&D or another more mainstream game so they can get a table. (Though of course - that's pure speculation on my part.)
The Networking Effect is a big deal in social games like D&D. I have no appetite for 6e but if my whole group moves to it I have no choice but to follow.
EDIT: Or stop playing with my friends which is no bueno.
If you are the GM you could probably steer them to another game but if you are just a player then yeah, you're stuck.